Single White men

Irvine and Selphie sat passively at a lunch table in balmb garden after observing the daily drama for this hour. Each day, like clockwork the two brunettes were privileged to observe the clash of the titans… Some idiot upstairs scheduled Zell and Seifer for the same lunch hour.

“I swear!” Selphie shook her head, blowing bubbles into her chocolate milk. Her green eyes sparkled when she laughed as the bubbles foamed out the opening of the carton. “They look just like two little kids! Yesterday, Seifer pulled Zell’s chair out from under him, the day before that he stole Zell’s lunch ticket, and today he poured milk in Zell’s carrots!”

“Mmmhmm” Irvine agreed; his mind more on admiring his precious little SeeD. His boots where up on the table and he was reclining back in his chair. He never ate lunch, usually just gave his lunch ticket to Zell or Rajin. After all, he had to keep his boyish figure and Balm’s food was actually good compared to the garbage at Galmbadia, more fattening. “They were like that for as long as I can remember, and apparently they never quit, whenever Zell came to the Gardens they just picked up right where they left off” He shrugged in his smooth southern accent.

“Poor Zell! No wonder he hates Seifer so much! Awww, but that’s a shame” Selphie pouted, now staking her tater-tots into elaborate temples.

Irvine raised an eyebrow, “Why’s that, babe?”

“Seifer’s cute! Or at least I thought he was” Selphie explained, giggling again. She saw Irvine give a hmph and put down the fired potato to pat his shoulder. “You’ll always be the cutest one of them all” Irvine smiles her her and she stole his hat in payment. “Well, don’t you think Zell and Seifer would be a cute couple” Her eyes shined. “it would be just like a yaoi manga! Seifer would be the tall, dark seme and Zell would be the short, innocent little uke” the bubble headed girl gave a little squeal.

Irvine broke out laughing, God, this was why he loved her! She had such a free, fluttering spirit. “Selphie, precious, it’s aat mat mental image but I don’t think it’d work out that easy in real life. Zell’s got a lot of resentment towards Seifer and I don’t know for sure about Zell’s sexual alignment, but I’m pretty sure Seifer isn’t gay”

“That’s not what Rinoa said,” Selphie sang softly. Irvine bent closer to hear her and she came close, cupping her hand to his cheek to whisper into his ear. “Rinoa said the whole time she was dating him everything seemed force, and he’d look at guys and get really pissed off about it when she’d say something. Rinoa thinks he might actually be gay, but in denial about it” Selphie sat back and spoke out loud. “So he just needs the right guy to help him be open with that part of himself!”

“Oy, Selphie…” Irvine sighed, feeling a little warm from her breath on his ear. “You’ve got to take anything Rinoa says about some one with a grain of salt…” He paused. He was trying to figure a way to tell Selphie that Rinoa was an evil bitch in a good way, since the two were best friends. “She tends to jump to conclusions about people, and some times those can be pretty wild. That’s something a lot of girls say about their exes whether or not its complete true in reality” he stated carefully. Before Selphie could protest, a large tan fighter game up, wrining his hands nervously.

“Hey, Irvine, I got a problem, ya know?” Rajin asked, obviously under anxiety.

“Lost your lunch ticket?” Irvine guessed with a sympathetic smile. The brawny man nodded pathetically. “Here ya go” The cowboy removed the platic card from his jacket and handed it to the tall, dark man.

“Thank you so much, Irvine, you’re a really life saver, ya know?” Rajin professed his gratitude.

“Hey, Rajin” Selphie began, smiling sweetly. “Do you think Seifer might be gay?”

Rajin blinked in surprise and Irvine nearly fell backwards out of his char. “Selphie!” He reprimanded her in shock.

“Now that’s something awfully personal to be askin, ya know? Rajin stammered, glancing around, checking for Seifer. “How come you ask?”

Selphie had on her best innocent expression, “Well, just the way Seifer treats Zell, the same way little kids tease each other when they like them” Irvine swore under his breath in proud admiration for the way that little girl could use cute to get away with murder.

“You noticed that too?” Rajin pulled out a chair and sat down with them. “I’ll tell you, Seifer is like, obsessed with Zell, always was, ya know?” Selphie offered him the west wing of La Cathedral De Potato.

“Yeah! Irvy said even when they were kids they’d carry on like that. It’s clear Seifer enjoys seeing Zell get mad, but you think there’s maybe more to it?” She pondered. “Hehe, maybe they will fall in love!”

“I dunno, I don’t think Seifer would ever admit he likes Zell, especially after Rinoa break his heart so bad, Ya know. And even if he told Zell, Zell might just throw it back in his face to get revenge, ya know?” Rajin pointed out, munching on the tater tots.

“If Seifer told Zell he felt anything for him, Zell wouldn’t even take him seriously. He’s probably figure Seifer was setting Zell up to look like a fool. And for that he would get angry” Irvine came to his friend defense.

“Well, I guess that just means we’ll really have to help them get together!” Selphie decalred.

“You’ve made up your mind on this, haven’t you?” Irvine sighed. He really had a bad feeling about this. Zell was a delicate creature despite all the acting he did around other people. The lasing ing he needed was a disastrous relationship.

“Hey, I think it’s a good idea, ya know?” Rajin agreed with Selphie. “Seifer needs somebody, but after we came back, he’s even more of an outcast, ya know? I worry ‘bhim him sometimes, he’s not happy, but for a while with Rinoa he was. I want him to be happy like that again, ya know?”

Selphie nodded solemnly. “Then Rajin, you need to feel out how Seifer feels about Zell, and encourage him! Irvy, you need to do the same with Zell, and me, I’ll just work my magic when both of the boys are ready!”

“Hoo boy, that’s gonna be one hard sell…” Irvine shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was join in this crazy conspiracy, but deep down he found this as interesting and exciting as Selphie did. The bell rang moments after and Rajin jumped up with a yelp to get though the line without being late for his classes. Irvine helped Selphie up and gave her a light kiss before stealing his hat back and heading off to his next period.

***

Irvine had shop with Zell right after lunch, which was nice because Zell loved this kind of thing and when they partnered up, Irvine was more than happy to let him enjoy himself doing the work. The shop teacher really didn’t care for Irvine, who did nothing but slack off and flit in his class, but Irvine really wasn’t bothered. Back at galmbadia they made you do push ups, at balmb they just glared at you when you slack. Irvine sauntered in right as the tardy bell rang and sat down without his books or his journal. He looked at the teacher and shrugged.

“Tch. You’re gonna fail this class, Irvine” Zell shook his head, sitting behind him with all of his required materials like a good little student.

“Meh, I don’t need the credit anyway, I just didn’t want a study hall” Irvine admitted. The blonde rolled his eyes and waited for the instructor to start the class.

After taking attendance, the teacher passed out worksheets and told them to go to their worktables, read the instructions and get to work. Irvine skimmed the header on the piece of paper, elementary weapon modification. Zell pulled on his coat sleeve to get his attention.

“Wanna be partners?” He asked, teal eyes naive as if Irvine wasn’t his partner for every single other project in here.

“Sure thing!” Irvine nodded, standing up and following the little fighter to a work station. Zell go straight to work. Irvine took that time to begin devising a strategy. He leaned casually against the workbench. Tapping Zell on the shoulder he pointed to a girl on the other side of the room. “Yo Zell, think she’s hot?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. Actually she was a little to butch for his tastes, he really didn’t like muscular girls; this one was certainly sturdy, with short spiked bleached hair.

“huh?” Zell looked over his shoulder for an instant. “Yeah, I guess, I dunno. Irvine, gimme that wrench you’re leaning on”

Irvine obliged him “What about her?” Irvine pointed out another female, a slender kind of redhead ditz who was trying to use the electric drill and getting the bit tuck in the wood bench tops each time the drill would slip as soon as she turned it on. She looked pleading to the instructor with dark green eyes. Not bad, a little skinny, but a little too klutzy to be cute.

“I don’t know, would you just let me work!” Zell snapped after another quick glance. Just about then the office aid came in, a fine specimen indeed, a dark skinned young man, just the prefect balance between slender and muscle. Long wavy black hair and soft brown eyes, he even worse the first third of his uniform unzipped to show carved collarbones and the top of a toned chest. Irvine gave a lowstlestle.

“Now he is hot” he commended to Zell authoritatively. The boy looked up in shocked and stared.

“Irvine!” He protested, hissing in a whisper.

“What?” The cowboy raised an eyebrow. “I’m bi, I’m allowed to look at nice looking men” Irvine defended himself, crossing his arms.

“No you’re not! You have a girl friend!” Zell continued to argue, the boy’s cheeks getting a little color. Irvine had to admit, he could see why it was fun to get Zell fired up, even if tfactfact did not excuse Seifer’s constant abuse.

“Selphie knows I’m bi. Actually she thinks it’s cute,” Irvine explained. “She loves yaoi so much she’d let me go with a guy as long as I didn’t love him any more than her and of course, shared with her every gratuitous detail for her fictions.” Irvine contemplated this. He glanced over at Zell whose mouth was hanging open with a stunned look upon his face. “Well… do you think that guy is hot?” Irvine poked him with a smile.

“Now come on! What are you trying to say?!” Zell exclaimed, several people began to look at him.

“Well… I guess I’ll be honest” Irvine said in a low voice after everyone returned to their projects. “You could use a significant other and I wanted to know your preferences on the matter” Irvine paused, reading dismay on Zell’s face. “This…something you wanna talk about later?” He put a hand on Zell’s shoulder.

“Yeah, later… after classes are out” Zell nodded, making himself busy with the assignment. “Uh- Training room C, I’m the only one that’s ever in there after school, ok?”

“Yeah, that’s fine” Irvine nodded, preplanning his afternoon to give Zell all the time he could possibly need.

Meanwhile, Rajin was setting about his share of the task. He knew this would be walking on egg shells. He had Seifer in his phsys Ed class with Rajin. The three always had all of their classes together. He approached Seifer in the locker room where Fujin couldn’t tell him to shut up and kick him when he opened his mouth.

“Hey Seifer, Man… you ever consider getting yourself girlfriend? I mean, after.. well you know, you haven’t even tried, ya know?” He started. Seifer was halfway though pulling the uniform white teeshirt over his head before staring at Rajin with a dangerous look.

“Fucking had it with women, they’ll all bitches and every female in balmb is lousy” He grumbled, blue eyes flashing. Rajin rubbed the back of his neck. That was a good segway for him.

“How about a guy then?” Rajin asked trying to looknoncnonchalant as possible, but inside the large man was trembling with fear.

Seifer blinked, then his blue eyes narrowed. “Rajin, are you trying to ask me out?” He speculated with a look on his face that clearly sated this was a preposition less than pleasing to him.

“no-no-no-no, Not me!” Rajin shook his head quickly, putting up his hands in defense.

“Then what’s with the third degree?” Seifer’s look turned stormy. Rajin felt his insides turn to jello under that glare.

“Be-because we were making thinking of some one for you. Maybe, just you know, kinda thinking…” Rajin was sweating bullets.

“So that’s what you were doing with that hyper bimbo and the lone ranger?” Seifer got back to dressing for gym.

“Well--they were just commenting on an observation, ya know?” the darker man was scrambling to explain things. “They noticed you single out Zell a lot and I noticed it too…”

“Zell?! THAT’s who you want to hook me up with?! You moron!” Seifer gaped, wrinkling his face up in disgust. “All three of you are insane!” He appeared like he was considering hitting Rajin for that accusation. Rajin took no chances and ducked.

“Don’t get mad, Seifer, please” He begged, “Just, just hear me out, Ok?” Seifer glowered, but didn’t stop the fighter. Rajin continued hesitantly. “It’s just… you’ve always treated him like that, and he’s always acted the same way. It’s kinda weird, like it’s a game between you two, ya know?”

“What can I say, I’m an evil bastard and he wraps him self up to be such a fine little target,” He stood up and gave a mock bow. “Now do you have anything else to say on the matter?” Rajin just sat there with a funny kinda look on his face. “Well? Spit it out!” he demanded.

“Fujin made me swear never to tell you…”

“What?” Seifer arched an eyebrow. He put both hands against the lockers on either side of Rajin, pinning him in place. Rajin realized he said too much too long ago to have any chance of wriggling out of this now.

“You remember going through puberty? Well.. Fujin would castrate me if she knew I told you... but you used to call out Zell’s name… a lot. I think we actually got it on tape somewhere….” Rajin closed his eyes and confessed quickly as he could. This was great, now if Seifer didn’t kill him, Fujin would get wind and do the job instead.

“Onou sou say a word about that again for as long as you live, you are a dead man- two, what the hell were you two doing watching me sleep when I was 15?!” Seifer snarled, hitting the lockers hard.

“We liked to watch over you, ya know?” Rajin said with a sheepish smile.

“Holy—I sure fell in with a pair or idiots” the gunblade-wielder gave a grunt of distain. “And you- drop this Zell thing. Do you understand me?” he pointed a finger at Rajin’s chest.

“Y-yes Seifer… But… just be honest, Boss… Do you really like Zell?” Rajin asked as Seifer turned to leave.

Seifer gave a harrumph, then his mouth formed a smirk, “I like pissing him off. He looks so funny when he’s mad” Seifer than let loose a cruel laugh and went out the doors into the gym leaving Rajin to sigh.